By Razark Baba
The 2022 first quarter Public-Private Partnership Forum on tourism has been held in Kumasi.
The event, under the theme, “Scaling Up Public-Private Partnership for Inclusive Tourism Growth”, attracted a large number of industry stakeholders to discuss ways by which the public and private sectors can work together to foster growth within the tourism sector.
The Public-Private Partnership Forum on tourism established under Article 42 of the Tourism Act is to engage the private sector to discuss pertinent issues that impact said development of the tourism sector in Ghana.
The Kumasi event is the second after the inaugural one held in October last year, in Accra.
It was organized by the Public Private Partnership Forum Office of the Ghana Tourism Authority under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture.
Key areas such as, creating business linkages among industry stakeholders, accessing funding from financial institutions, standardizing frameworks, developing skills set that are relevant to the tourism and hospitality sectors and providing the right motivation for professionals were highlighted during discussions.
President of the Ghana Tourism Federation, Mrs. Bella Ahu said investments in the tourism sector should go into developing the needed tourism infrastructure and training among other things to make the sector more attractive.
Chairman of the Ghana Tourism Authority Governing Board, Mr. Seth Adjei Baah said industry stakeholders need to start looking at tourism as an avenue for wealth creation.
Kenya’s High Commissioner to Ghana, Mr. Eliphas Barine commended organizers for the event, stating that ”it is the way to go to bring various players together to facilitate revenue inflows into the tourism sector”.
